12/22/2014

Random Thoughts on Spreading the Blame for a Cop Killing

1. Yesterday, in a divey Brooklyn restaurant, the Rude Pundit watched as an African American couple approached the three police officers who were ordering at the counter. They wanted to know how the cops were doing in the wake of the murders of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, shot to death by a savage fucker who was kind enough to off himself. The cops thanked the couple, who thanked them in return. Later, walking through the Lower East Side in Manhattan, the Rude Pundit passed some fresh graffiti that read, "R.I.P. Not all cops are bad cops. #alllivesmatter." The zeitgeist of New York City yesterday was mournful, not regretful.

2. But the airwaves are filthy with opportunistic sons of bitches. The blood barely dry on the scene, Patrick Lynch, the head of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, mouthed off, "There's blood on many hands tonight," he said. "That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor." Then Lynch blamed those who think that cops shouldn't murder unarmed men, specifically "those that incited violence on the streets under the guise of protest that tried to tear down what NYPD officers did every day. We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated." Those who committed the small amount of violence during the protests are either turning themselves in or being turned in by other protesters, but, sure, why not blame them. Lynch also orchestrated the moment when cops turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he was heading to a briefing at the hospital where Liu and Ramos were taken. It was not a spontaneous shunning.

2a. Keep in mind that Lynch's and other unions are currently in contract negotiations with City Hall that could best be described as "acrimonious."

2b. And some cops are pissed off at de Blasio for defending his wife's chief of staff, who once was a spokeswoman for Al Sharpton and whose boyfriend called cops "pigs" on Facebook or something.

2c. This is on top of the cops who are angry about the change in the enforcement of marijuana laws that de Blasio enacted, shifting from arresting people for possession of small amounts of pot to giving a ticket. The head of another union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said that de Blasio "just doesn’t get it with this whole far-left agenda, and he’s putting (cops) in a bad spot." Oh, and if people aren't put in prison for a joint or two, it is "clearly the beginning of the breakdown of a civilized society." As if that's not drama queeny enough, there has been talk of a work slowdown by the NYPD to protest that and the changes to stop-and-frisk.

2d. So, you know, keep the cops' anger with de Blasio in perspective. If he had given them the raise they want, you can bet that most of this bullshit, self-righteous anger wouldn't exist.

2e. If also bears saying that, like crime in general, cop killing has been declining in recent years.

3. Many people from the protests have made statements in support of the police and condemning the murders, including Michael Brown's family, Eric Garner's family, and de facto protest leader Al Sharpton. Any time anyone speaks about police violence, they have to include some line that indicates they only mean the violent asshole cops and not the vast majority of police officers. This exclusion of most cops is even more pronounced now. Yet Lynch and others don't feel any obligation to say the vast majority of the protesters are peaceful. Instead, they freely blame protests for murder.

3a. And no cops have spoken out against the murders by police officers that are being protested.

4. Rudy Giuliani did more to ruin the NYPD than the most fevered fantasies of a militantly liberal Bill de Blasio. Giuliani should probably just the shut the fuck up and shove his vicious, hateful rhetoric up his savage ass.

5. In June, Jerad and Amanda Miller shot two police officers and another person dead in Las Vegas. They had come from the standoff at the ranch of Cliven Bundy, where a bunch of white shitheels actually pointed guns at federal agents and everyone went home without a shot being fired or anyone being arrested, despite Bundy being guilty of essentially the same crime as Eric Garner, except Bundy owed the government more than a million bucks in grazing fees and not a few coins on single cigarettes. The Millers were anti-government nutzoids who thought cops were oppressors who were gonna git their guns or some such shit. They left a note on the scene saying they wanted to start a revolution.

You know what didn't happen after the shooting? Police associations didn't say that Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman had blood on her hands. The cops didn't condemn the armed numbskulls at Bundy ranch, who were, you know, protesters. And the Vegas police unions most definitely did not say they were now a "wartime" department, as the New York City PBA supposedly did.

5a. Imagine the shitstorm that'd happen if the cops said that violent white people were the problem and they needed to be stopped. It would have actually made sense. The Millers were directly connected with the Bundy ranch uprising. The guy who shot Liu and Ramos was a solo dickhead with a Facebook page.

5b. But craven fucks like Giuliani and Joe Scarborough and others will use this as a chance to shut the marching blacks down.